Media management is a process of managing and exposing the multimedia content to the viewer/listener. Traditionally, media management features were first introduced on personal computers (PCs) with applications such as Windows Media Player and Apple iTunes, as PCs were the first devices available to customers with ready access to a large number of multimedia titles such as MP3s files. In-vehicle infotainment followed later in the early 2000s, but with a somewhat reduced feature set and a reduced speed caused by limited hardware resources of a typical in-vehicle infotainment system of these times compared to a home PC.
The sizes of media databases have increased more and more due to the ready availability of audio files, video files or other media files such as e-book files or so. Straightforward media databases are, for example, located on memory sticks, optical media such as DVDs or BDs or CDs, or are located on portable players such as a portable music player, a portable media player, an e-book reader or a laptop or a tablet PC or so. Generally, many different portable devices exist on which databases are located.
On the other hand, stationary devices or, generally, host devices, exist which can for example be located in a car or in the living room of an individual. Typically, a user wishes to take her or his portable database and to attach her or his portable database to the host device which can be located for example in the car, in the living room or anywhere else where the individual wants to enjoy the media items on the database.
Due to the huge size of typical media databases, which has been made possible due to the rapid developments in storage possibilities, the attachment of an external database to a host device itself is not straightforward. It typically takes a long time until the host device has uploaded the database due to the large amount of media pieces. However, it is tedious for a user to wait such a long time between plugging the database into the host device and a successful search request to the database and an accompanying search result from the database. Due to the fact that the external databases are typically very different from each other, a standardized way of accessing the databases from the host directly is not available. Therefore, a straightforward way to access an external database consists in that the host device uploads the entire data from the database and after the upload is complete the host is in the position to answer a search request for media items in the database. As stated before, this uploading of data from the database to the host typically takes a long time due to limited transmission resources of, for example, a USB connector or a wireless connecting protocol. Therefore, this straightforward procedure is tedious for the user and therefore hinders the interchangeability of databases between different host devices.